She Left for Tokyo
Or so I thought.
That's how she left — for Tokyo. And that's how, in the end, we broke up.
That morning, I saw her off without saying much. I had my own flight to catch that day too, down to San Francisco for a presentation. The whole drive to the airport, it felt like I was watching her walk into an international departure gate, even though she was really just walking out our front door. Part of me seriously considered ditching everything and going after her instead.
I've been through my share of breakups. But that one hurt in a way none of the others had.
Still, I've always believed that impulse comes with a price, and that even the choices that feel like accidents are really just following a road that was already laid out. So I let her go. I told myself I was respecting her decision.
Even how we met started with a strange little accident. Back then I was working as an Account Executive at a big ad agency in Toronto, fresh out of college. The company had just run an open call for new hires, and a few thousand applications came pouring in. For client-facing roles like mine, the agency had this odd policy of asking candidates to include a photo with their application — looking back, that's probably where this whole story should have stopped.
I should say upfront: what I'm about to tell you is not something I'm proud of, and it's not something you should ever try. If I had any sense, I'd have kept it to myself. But it's the whole reason my wife exists in my life, so here it is.
I happened to be walking through HR one day when I saw a stack of resumes from applicants who hadn't made the cut. The person handling them was a friend of mine.
"Hang on a second," I said. "Pick me three good-looking ones."
He looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "You trying to get fired?"
"I'm just gonna look. That's all."
A minute later, I was holding three resumes. All three women were beautiful. I ranked them, entirely on my own made-up scale. Number one came from a well-known journalist's family. Number two had studied cello in New York. Number three had a résumé just as impressive as the other two, in her own way.
If I'm honest, my type was really number one, or maybe number two. Which is exactly why I decided to call number three first. If she turned me down, it would sting less. Looking back, that was a strange piece of math to run.
The second I got off work, I called her. No plan, no thought — just like me.
"I didn't even get the job. Why are you calling me?" Ice cold, right out of the gate. "Is this even legal? Using applicant information like this?"
I broke into a cold sweat. If she'd filed a complaint, I'd have lost my job that same day. Thankfully, that's as far as it went.
A few days later we met for the first time, at a brunch place near the office. She was prettier than the photo. She'd cut her long hair short since then, which changed the whole feel of her — but somehow she still had that thing that pulls your eyes to her the moment she walks in. And more than anything, there was an ease to her I couldn't quite explain.
We started seeing each other a lot after that, and it wasn't long before I quietly fed resumes one and two into a shredder. My heart had already made its choice.
At first, I was the only one falling. But slowly, she started falling too. We walked along Niagara Falls together. We got lost in the old streets of Quebec City. In the fall, we drove through mountain roads lit up gold and red with maple leaves. The pictures piled up, and so did the memories.
Looking back now, I still wonder sometimes. Did she choose me? Did I choose her? Or did my friend in HR decide our fate the moment he handed me those three resumes as a joke?
Life is a little like Plinko. That chip drops through a maze of pegs, bouncing left, bouncing right, and it looks completely random the whole way down — but it was always going to land in one particular slot. We call it chance while it's happening. Looking back, it feels like every path was connected from the start.
My slot was her.
But fate had one more trick up its sleeve. She loved Tokyo. She talked about it constantly — cherry blossom season, the tiny cafés tucked into side streets, the bakeries that opened at dawn. I went along with her more than once, and to be honest, it never really became my thing.
"There's Kyoto. There's Osaka. Why does it always have to be Tokyo?"
That one line was the problem. I never really understood what she saw in it, and I think that small comment left a hairline crack somewhere between us.
And that morning, Tokyo was the word on her lips as she walked out the door.
I sat on a bench in the arrivals hall at SFO for a while, my mind somewhere else entirely. Did she land okay? It's probably crowded there today too. It's still morning — has she even ordered coffee yet? Did she remember the brunch coupon? That's the one that gets you a free croissant. Still, Tokyo's eggs benedict beats their pancakes any day.
Except the place she'd actually gone wasn't Japan.
It was a brunch spot in downtown Seattle called Tokyo.
On the day I thought was our tearful goodbye, she had simply gone out for the coffee I love and the eggs benedict she loves.
Since that devastating "breakup," we have never actually broken up. Not once. Even now, all I have to do is turn my head, and there she is, asleep beside me.
Sometimes I think I've gotten a lot further on luck than on skill.
And sure — on the days my wife is chewing me out hard enough to bring tears to my eyes, a thought flickers through my mind for just a second. What if I'd never made that call. Where are resume number one and resume number two now, and who are they growing old with.
But the thought never goes anywhere past that. Because the fact that she's the one next to me right now is more than enough.
I hope that, someday, my wife reads this.
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